A street in HCM City is almost empty as the city imposed stricter measures for pandemic control. VNA/VNS Photo Hồng Giang

HÀ NỘI — A total of 300 local COVID-19 cases were reported on Sunday in nine localities, the Ministry of Health announced.

HCM City topped the list of most infections with 137 followed by Bắc Giang Province with 96, Đà Nẵng City with 27, Bắc Ninh Province with 19, Bình Dương Province with 13, Nghệ An Province with five, and the provinces of Hà Tĩnh, Quảng Nam and An Giang with one each.

Among the new cases, 281 were detected in quarantined or locked-down areas.

On the same day, the ministry reported 11 imported cases which were quarantined upon arrival in Tây Ninh, Thái Bình, Kiên Giang and Bình Dương provinces.

Twenty-one provinces of Yên Bái, Quảng Ngãi, Quảng Ninh, Quảng Trị, Thừa -Thiên Huế, Tuyên Quang, Sơn La, Ninh Bình, Thanh Hóa, Thái Nguyên, Hưng Yên, Hải Phòng, Tây Ninh, Gia Lai, Bạc Liêu, Điện Biên, Đắk Lắk, Đồng Tháp, Trà Vinh, Thái Bình and Vĩnh Phúc have not reported any new community cases for the last 14 days.

As of Sunday evening,  Việt Nam has recorded a total of 11,513 local and 1,698 imported cases.

There have been 9,943 cases since the fourth wave of infections hit the country on April 27.

Stricter measures

On Sunday, HCM City decided to ban public gatherings of more than three people as part of its latest measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to news.gov.vn.

People must keep a distance of at least 1.5 metres from each other in public places and only leave home for emergencies, to buy food or medicine, work in factories or other activities specified by the municipal Department of Health.

Public agencies and businesses, including foreign-invested enterprises, have to ensure social distancing by minimising direct contacts and switching to online working.

The local government said it would impose lockdowns on very high-risk and high-risk areas to control the pandemic.

It also plans to ramp up testing capacity to 500,000 samples per day, especially at processing, industrial and high-tech parks. VNS